NEWS: 7 year old becomes the next ‘Hitgirl’ in Joe Wright’s HANNA

Moving even further away from our official description as a “press”, we’ve just got a glimpse of Hanna, the new film from the guy who did Atonement, The Soloist [which got thrown behind the couch somewhere instead of released], and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies [where Keira Knightley nearly died filming the sundial fight scene with Donny Sutherland…remember?].

But this film, what’s it all about?

In short:

A 7 year old girl has been trained all her life by Eric Bana somewhere in Lapland. Then one day he gives her a box and tells her if she’s ready, to push the button. She does and somewhere in the Amazon jungle [but really Spielberg’s backyard] Cate Blanchett ditches that shitty Indiana Jones film and comes along to be a bad guy in this. Bana can’t stand the sound of gunfire so deserts his little girl and tells her not to meet him in Berlin. The girl thinks he says ‘meet me in Berlin’ so goes there. Meanwhile Bana is wandering around subway stations in Berlin and fighting random strangers, all in one glorious seven-hundred minute long continuous shot. Despite this the film doesn’t drag at all. Then Bana, the little girl and Blanchett get together, and the little girl, who is called Hanna by the way, tries to get the two of them to have sex. It doesn’t work.

I think that’s the basics of it. Maybe a little off on some details, but mostly accurate.

According to early reviews from the director and Bana, the film is incredible. Every scene is shot in a counter-intuitive way so whatever you expect this to be, it will challenge it. Or frustrate it maybe. One scene has Bana turning up at Bucharest airport instead of Berlin, and then getting into a taxi and paying way too much for a ride back to the airport. What’s the point of this? It’s hard to say, but maybe…maybe it’s part of that counter-intuitive thing I just mentioned?

What else?

I forgot to say that Bana has been training the girl to be a killer. To speak different languages too, so she can explain herself and her actions to people who speak shit English. Which all seems kinda familiar.

Kick Ass. Chloe whatsherface. Nic Cage.

I wonder if this one will be any closer to some kind of reality I know. Will Hanna beat up men twice her size who aren’t using much momentum against her which she can then use against them to do all the damage? Or will she just pretend to be scared to every bad guy she meets and then kick them in the nuts?

We’ll see. I think this thing is out in Lapland next week. In the meantime maybe we should write something about our books. Did you know we’ve got a Hollywood satire out this week? And it’s named after that episode of Star Trek where Kirk goes back in time to sexually assault Joan Collins? We do, it is, and he did.